Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

Illustrator has a plethora of tools at you disposal. Even with all these tools, there is always going to be something missing. This is where scripts and plug-ins come in to help. With scripts and plug-ins you can perform tasks that Illustrator cannot complete on it’s own. There are a great deal of resources out there and in this post you will find 10 free and useful scripts for Illustrator!

I have been using a 6×8 Wacom Intuos3 for the past 4 months, and can’t live without it. It has become a important tool in my Illustrator work. Not only is it more natural using the Wacom compared to a mouse, Illustrator has some tool features you can only use with a pen tablet. With some tools you can set how the tool responds to the Pressure, Stylus Wheel, Tilt, Bearing, and Rotation of the pen. Continue reading

This is a quick tip, but anything that helps productivity is worth mentioning. With the Pathfinder Panel you can create different compound shapes by pressing the desired button. You expand the shape by pressing the Expand button in the panel. Instead of pressing the expand button, hold Alt /Option when pressing the button to combine these two step!

Illustrator has many great selection features, as I talked about in a previous post Save Time With Save Selection. Another selection option that I use regularly is the Magic Wand Tool (Y). With the Magic Wand Tool (Y), you select an object and the tool will select every object with similar attributes. The real benefit of using the Magic Wand Tool (Y) comes when setting the tolerance levels.

Lately, I’ve been using my Sketch-Style Brushes in illustrations and tutorials. In, some of these illustrations, the brush strokes needed to be expanded to editable paths. When expanding, you also get a bunch of unfilled paths. To clean up, simply go Object > Path > Clean Up and check the Unpainted Objects check box. You can also use this feature to get rid of Empty Text Boxes and Stray Points!

It is easy to add metadata such as authors, descriptions, keywords, copyright info, and more to your Illustrator files. To add metadata, go File > File Info, to bring up the File Info dialog. You can save your metadata as a Metadata Template from the top right arrow button in the dialog. Moreover, Illustrator automatically adds certain information like fonts, swatches and color groups each time you save.

I have seen this tip around on a couple of blogs, but it is so helpful I had to repeat it. You can quickly change you document’s measurement units by Control-Cliking (mac) or Right-Clicking (pc) on the Ruler. I use this constantly when designing websites or working with a file from overseas (the United States is a little behind on the whole Metric system thing).